Feed rollers are commonly used in crop harvesting machines for guiding the crop from a position in front of the roller to a position rearwardly of the roller. Such rollers are used in many different locations in crop feeding systems and the arrangement described herein is not limited to any particular location of such a crop feeding roller.
However one primary use of such rollers is in that of guiding the crop from a harvesting header into the feeder house of a combine harvester. Such headers can be of the type which simply provide a cutter bar across the front of the header using any suitable cutting technique behind which is located the guide roller which includes an auger flight for transporting the crop material inwardly from the width of the cutter bar to the narrower width of the feeder house.
Other arrangements include a feed draper system so that the crop is transported primarily from the width of the cutter bar inwardly to the narrow width of the feeder house using one or more side drapers which carry the crop to a central feed draper which moves rearwardly toward the feeder house. Arrangements of this type are manufactured by a number of manufactures but primarily by the assignee herein. In the draper header system, the feed roller is therefore much narrower since it is only intended to guide the material into the feeder house rather than the transport the material wholly along the length of the header. In many cases therefore the roller is also of smaller diameter.
In all of these arrangements, the roller generally includes a series of angularly and axially spaced fingers which project through the peripheral wall forming the roller and outwardly from the outer peripheral surface of the roller so as to engage the crop.
The fingers are driven so that they move longitudinally so as to increase and decrease their extension from the peripheral wall of the roller. Their maximum extension from the peripheral surface of the roller is located at the location where the fingers are intended to engage and grasp the crop and the minimum extent is located at the position where the fingers are intended to release the crop. Thus the fingers generally are at their maximum extent at a position directly forwardly of the roller and the fingers rotate with the roller around the underneath of the roller and are retracted as they move behind the roller to allow the crop to be released to enter into the feeder house to be engaged by the feeder chain of the feeder house. At the position rearward of the roller, the fingers are retracted by the position of the finger axis to locations substantially flush with the surface of the roller to release the crop.
This arrangement is well established, widely used and has been widely successful.
One arrangement of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,392,646 (Patterson) issued Jul. 1, 2008 and assigned to the present assignees, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.